Good morning. We’re covering a surge in coronavirus cases worldwide, a display of new weaponry by North Korea and President Trump’s plans to resume campaigning. | |  By Carole Landry | | | A coronavirus testing station in Washington. Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images | | | The number of new cases is growing faster than ever, according to a Times database. | | | Globally, the U.S. leads with the highest number of infections since late May. But India is on course to overtake the U.S. On Sunday, India reported 74,383 new infections, taking its total past seven million. The U.S. has more than 7.7 million cases. | | | In other virus developments: | | ■ Cases in Nepal are sharply increasing, overwhelming hospitals. Frontline doctors have also been infected, raising fears that health institutions’ staffing will be hollowed out. ■ South Korea said on Sunday that it was easing social-distancing restrictions, lifting a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people indoors and more than 100 outdoors. ■ The Israeli military began treating civilian coronavirus patients for the first time on Sunday, deploying to an overstrained hospital in the port city of Haifa and opening two Covid-19 wards in an underground campus. | | | A report on North Korea’s military parade on South Korean news. Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press | | | The display was most likely an attempt to show that the country is making advances in military technology, but it was not immediately clear if the new missiles were real or mock-ups. | | | Analysis: By showing off but not launching a new ICBM that could potentially deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S., analysts said, Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, appeared to want to avoid provoking President Trump ahead of the Nov. 3 election. | | | Scene: The parade, which unlike earlier celebrations was held at night, was meant to lift morale after a difficult year that included devastating floods. It was held on the 75th anniversary of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party and featured fireworks, military planes firing flares in the night sky and goose-stepping soldiers who swore to “defend Kim Jong-un with our lives.” The highlight was the array of artillery pieces, tanks, rockets and missiles. | | | Social media at a market in Karachi. Fareed Khan/Associated Press | | | The ban was announced on Friday by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which said it had received complaints about “immoral/indecent” content. | | | Many analysts and journalists say that the ban served a dual purpose: mollifying conservatives and curbing criticism of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s handling of the economy and tough stance toward political rivals. | | | Example: One TikTok video that was widely shared a few months ago showed two users mocking Mr. Khan for telling Pakistanis not to panic in the face of hardships brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. | | | Impact: TikTok has about 20 million active monthly users in Pakistan. The head of a digital marketing agency said the number of users had doubled during the country’s lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. | | | Natalie Grono for The New York Times | | | Helena Norberg-Hodge has been critical of the global system of trade for decades. Now more than ever, she has become a lodestar for people all over the world who want a shift toward what they call localism. | | | In this profile, our Sydney bureau chief writes about the activist-scholar’s newfound relevance during the pandemic, for her ideas on promoting the health of the environment and the happiness of humanity. “There has been such a huge shift in awareness,” she said on a recent visit to a farmers’ market near the New South Wales coast. | | | PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR | | TEST: Email Marketing 101: Never Sacrifice Beauty for Simplicity | | A drag-and-drop email builder, a gallery of templates and turnkey designs, personalized customer journeys, and engagement segments. It's everything you need to create stunning, results-driven email campaigns in minutes. And with Campaign Monitor, you have access to it all, along with award-winning support around the clock. It's beautiful email marketing done simply. | | | Learn More | | | | Trump properties: The latest Times investigation into President Trump’s tax returns found that more than 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments had patronized Mr. Trump’s properties, funneling in millions of dollars, while reaping benefits from him and his administration. | | | QAnon in Germany: The U.S. conspiracy theory has found fertile ground among Germany’s far-right fringe. The country has the largest QAnon following — an estimated 200,000 people — in the non-English-speaking world, which has quickly built audiences on YouTube, Facebook and the Telegram messenger app. | | | Kyrgyzstan: Lawmakers in the Central Asian country selected Sadyr Japarov, a convicted kidnapper who was sprung from jail by protesters just days ago to be the new prime minister. The arrangement may help calm street violence, but it also stirred some alarm that criminal elements had prevailed. | | | French Open: Rafael Nadal routed Novak Djokovic in the French Open final to win his 20th Grand Slam singles title and tie the men’s record held by Roger Federer. | | | Doug Mills/The New York Times | | | Snapshot: President Trump at a White House event on Saturday said he was “feeling great” as he spoke from a balcony to hundreds of supporters. Mr. Trump said in an interview on Sunday that he was now “totally free of spreading” the coronavirus as he prepared to resume campaigning for the Nov. 3 election. | | | What we’re reading: This article in The Washingon Post, which Stacy Cowley, a business reporter, calls “a heartbreaking story of how a coronavirus denier became a believer.” | | | Johnny Miller for The New York Times | | | Watch: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Wife of a Spy” touches on the Imperial Army’s testing of biological and chemical weapons on human subjects in Manchuria before and during World War II. The film garnered Mr. Kurosawa the best director award at the Venice Film Festival. | | | Do: Stretching and meditative movement like yoga before bed can improve the quality of your sleep. Here is a short and calming routine of 11 stretches and exercises. | | | Elaine Sciolino, a writer and former Paris bureau chief for The Times, has lived in Paris since 1978. She wrote about her long and complicated relationship with France and the disconnect in customs for Americans, which the new Netflix series “Emily in Paris” holds up a mirror to. Here’s an excerpt. | | | French rules regulating interpersonal behavior are a complex maze. | | | To be overly “familiar” is to invite scorn; to laugh too loudly is to solicit disdain; to take seconds on the cheese course is to jeopardize future invitations. Then, of course, there is the historical fear of the stranger, which penetrates deep into the French soul. At my local cafe, after months of haughty silence from the server, who barely tolerated my presence, I was finally greeted with “Bonjour” and a smile. The secret? A French friend at my side. I needed a local to fit in. | | | The writer Elaine Sciolino, a former Paris bureau chief for The Times, in 2010. Gabriela Sciolino Plump | | | And that brings me to “Emily in Paris.” Within the clichés were grains of truth. A few of them: | | | The smile: “Stop smiling,” Emily’s boss, Sylvie, commands. “People will think you are stupid.” Americans smile at strangers; Parisians do not, which helps explain why some Americans find Parisians rude. | | | The voice: “Why are you shouting?” one of Emily’s French colleagues asks when she makes her first presentation. Yes, Americans tend to speak much more loudly than the French. | | | Work: “Are you crazy,” Sylvie tells Emily when she talks business at an evening reception. We are at a “soiree,” not on a “conference call,” she adds. In Washington, where I was once The Times’s chief diplomatic correspondent, cocktail parties and dinners were thinly veiled excuses to buttonhole sources and get scoops. In Paris, evenings are for relaxation and social discourse. Work, if it is done at all, has to be sneaked in and barely noticeable. | | | To navigate Paris as an American is to be forced to slow down and embrace the process, ideally with a sense of humor. A playful spirit (in French, if possible) can neutralize a brusque response, draw the other party into a dialogue and create a pleasurable “partage” — a sharing. | | Thanks for spending part of your day with The Times. See you next time. — Carole | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
